I may have been being slightly naive and uncritical in my entry on Boston and the olympics last week. For me, being part of London 2012 was a hugely positive experience, and I am still very proud to have been part of it. But there’s much more to this than pride: while I still think hosting the world’s biggest sporting and cultural event is a huge boon for a city, there are those who take a different view. This article, for instance, lays out just how corrupt and complex the bidding competition is; in a way, it explains, the IOC can be seen as acting like a huge mafia organisation, making vast demands on a city. I see his point: why spend so much money placating this huge undemocratic organisation by putting on the world’s most extravagant party, when it can be used on, say, education or housing? I must agree, and, reading this article, it is clear that some serious investigation must be done on the IOC – it’s almost as bad as FIFA. While I still think what happened in London in 2012 was great, now that I’ve started to look into this process, its starting to look very murky indeed. The awesomeness of James Bond escorting the queen to the olympic opening ceremony or Lyn playing at the Paralympic closing ceremony is one thing; the stupidity of having to build billion-pound facilities which will be used for three weeks and then be left to crumble is quite another. At the same time, this article could have a touch of post-event rationalisation to it; it could be a case of a Bostonian saying ”we didn’t really want the olympics anyway, so ner!” The way in which it presents Boston’s simple withdrawal from the process as some sort of mighty victory over the IOC certainly smacks of that, anyway. Nevertheless, it’s clear to me that I shouldn’t be so naive and uncritical when it comes to the IOC.